What If Germany Had Developed the Atomic Bomb?

In the Star Trek episode"The City on the Edge of Forever," a temporarily insane Doctor McCoy passes through a time portal. The landing party sent to retrieve him discovers that it has lost contact with the orbiting starship Enterprise. Implacably, the guardian of the portal explains, "Your vessel, your beginning—all that you knew—is gone." McCoy had somehow changed Earth's history, with catastrophic results.

In desperation, Kirk and Spock go back in time to find McCoy, determine how he changed history, and stop him. Eventually Spock discovers that history pivots on the moment when McCoy saves a remarkable woman, Edith Keeler, from a fatal accident. Keeler went on to found a pacifist movement so powerful it delayed U.S. entry into World War II, allowing Nazi Ger­many time to develop the atomic bomb first. "With their A-bombs, and with their V-2 rockets to carry them," Spock explains, "Germany captured the world."

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This imagined possibility provides one of the most compelling moments of the entire Star Trek series—and has provoked the imagination of many a history buff as well. But a determined spoilsport can poke a number of holes in it. To begin with, the Nazis never seriously pursued an atomic weapon. Even had they done so, limits on the production rate of fissionable material meant that at best, it would have required several weeks to manufacture a single atomic bomb. The massive rain of atomic bombs implicit in the Star Trek scenario was therefore out of the question. In any event, V-2 rockets could not have carried the immensely heavy early atomic bombs. The Nazis did not have a bomber with sufficient lift to carry them, either.

Moreover, if the Nazis had somehow reached cities in England and Russia, that would not necessarily have compelled these adversaries to surrender. Two atomic bombs barely sufficed to defeat Japan, and then only after the Japanese had suffered irreversible battlefield defeats and the fire-bombing of most of their cities. In telling contrast, historically the Red Army—although buffeted by disaster upon disaster—eluded strategic defeat and eventually assumed the offensive. Underscoring Soviet resilience was the fact they suffered 20 million dead—the equivalent of 200 Hiroshimas—and still continued to fight.

Yet another questionable assumption is that a German bomb would have been equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb. It could easily have been much less. India's first nuclear test in 1974, for example, yielded only four kilotons (versus the 20 kilotons of the Hiroshima bomb).

It is also a virtual certainty that the shock of a German bomb would have shaken the United States from its pacifist reverie and sparked the launch of the Manhattan Project. Shielded from Nazi attack by the Atlantic Ocean, America would have eventually developed a bomb of its own, and used it either to deter further Nazi gains or, from bases in Britain or the Soviet Union, rained destruction upon Germany.

Thus it is impossible, even in the Star Trek universe, to imagine a plausible scenario by which Nazi Germany would have "captured the world."

The probability of German victory through use of atomic bombs diminishes still further when one considers events as they actually unfolded, with America's entry into the war in December 1941. Even granting Nazi acquisition of the bomb in July 1943—two years before the United States achieved this feat—and arbitrarily giving the Germans a bomber with a range and payload comparable to Britain's Lancaster heavy bomber, the Third Reich would have faced not a single adversary comparable to 1945 Japan, but rather three nations firmly on the offensive and demonstrably winning the war. In such circumstances, a handful of atomic bombs would scarcely have compelled the Grand Alliance to surrender. Given that reality, how could Germany have best wielded its newly acquired weapon?

The most obvious approach, the destruction of cities á la Hiroshima, was in fact problematic. An attack on American cities was out of the question. The phenomenal capacity of the Soviet Union to absorb destruction would argue against the efficacy of simply destroying Russian cities. (Historically, the Siege of Leningrad claimed eight times the number of civilians killed in Nagasaki.) In any event, not even a Lancaster-like bomber could have reached the Soviet industrial centers beyond the Ural Mountains. London and a few other British cities might have been leveled, but would this have caused the British government to make a separate peace? Even had this occurred, would the United States have withdrawn from Britain? Or would it have taken the course adopted historically by Germany when Italy surrendered in 1943: assume de facto control over its former ally and use it as a platform on which to continue the fight?

A better approach, considering the numerous reversals of Germany's fortune on the battlefield, would have been the tactical use of the bomb against enemy armies. For ideological reasons, the Nazis would have been tempted to target Soviet forces: from the outset, the Nazis had regarded Bolshevism as a menace that must be totally eradicated. But the fact that the Soviets had continued fighting despite the destruction of entire armies ought to have suggested that even nuclear attacks would not have stopped the Red Army.

The Western Allies would have made better targets, since they could only get at Germany via amphibious landings. Of necessity, such landings had to be geographically concentrated, making them ideal targets. German's mere possession of an atomic bomb would therefore have rendered D-Day and a second front out of the question. Faced with this reality, it is just possible that the Soviets might have negotiated a separate peace with Germany.

What becomes highly probable, then, is that a protracted stalemate would have settled over Europe, finally disrupted when the United States acquired the bomb in July 1945 and employed it against Germany. World War II, not a hypothetical World War III, would thus have become the first nuclear conflict.

32 Responses to “What If Germany Had Developed the Atomic Bomb?”

Add to the above the fact that Germany never bought into the idea of strategic bombing as embraced by the U.S. and Britain. The Luftwaffe was a force tailored to support the ground forces with "flying artillery" and what we'd today call Battlefield Air Interdiction.

John is correct re the "design" of the Luftwaffe but Hitler obviously required the Luftwaffe to engage in strategic bombing in the Battle of Britain. Later when the V-1 and V-2 missles became operational, he again targeted British cities. The infamous "secret weapons" were not used tactically. I believe that if Germany had developed the ultimate "secret weapon", the A-bomb, it would most certainly have been used against its enemies' cities. For a very interesting fiction of what may have happened given a delayed US entry into WWII, see Gingrich's "1945".

Not correct… after the bombing of Munich Hitler convened a conference of aircraft manufacturers at Obersalzburg on 23 May 1943 where he demanded a strategic bomber capable of bombing England by day and night. Since Heinkel had been working clandestinely on the He-177B he proposed this and was granted an immediate contract to develop it further. This aircraft became the He-177 A8 and in August 1943 was renamed as the He-277.

These He-277 aircraft could fly at 49,210ft and 355mph well above Allied interceptors with a 6,000lb bomb load. These aircraft were held in seclusion at secret airbases in Norway at Eggemoen Leir and Haslemoen.

There was also a late war project under Kommando Nebel to re-wing He-177 aircraft retired from KG40 with the same wings from the Me-264 project creating a hybrid long range bomber. This project was associated with the Kjeller aircraft factory in Norway.

Germany was stockpiling Tabun-b nerve gas both in aerial bombs and artillery shells for an offensive in October 1944, however Churchill learned of this and threatened Hitler with retaliation by Anthrax in August 1944.

Furthermore I disagree with remarks comparing the Hiroshima bomb. There is a document archived at the US Library of Congress which refers to the US9th Army recovering a 3.8 tonne "Uranium device" (ie bomb) from a location near Goslar on 26th April 1945.

The Manhattan Project by Feb 1945 was ringing alarm bells with the President in a memo by James B Connaut citing inadequate production of Highly enriched Uranium at Oak Ridge. The Nazis on the other hand had several underground complexes from January 1944 using various versions of the Anschutz Mark III-B ultracentrifuge which was 30 times faster at enrichment than the American gaseous diffusion method.

Given that the Manhattan project always intended using Plutonium weapons Fat Man and Thin Man and only abandoned Thin Man upon discovering the implications of Plutonium 240 from analysis results of the X-10 graphite pile at Oak Ridge in Feb 1945, there was in fact no US preparation for a Uranium bomb in the United States prior to the capture of this German Uranium bomb in 1945. The inference being made that the Hiroshima bomb was actually a German weapon taken over by Operation Overcast.

In all likelihood the greatest secret still kept from WW2 is that Little Boy was a German Atomic bomb.

Given the strength of German aeronautical engineering at the time, which was at par if not above those of the allies I would assume a concurrent program to develop a 4 engine bomber or other delivery system could have been undertaken.

There is also the possibility of having a nuclear device on a 'true' submarine able to avoid detection, the Elektroboot, sailing into the Hudson river and detonating it's payload. While not causing damage equivalent to an airdrop the psychological effects of a mushroom cloud in NY's harbor a la Operation Crossroads would probably have much of the populace reconsidering their stance on the war against Germany.

Almost. They have the materials and the Heavy Water in Scandinavia needed. But Neils Bohr, (student of Einstein) escaped from Belgium to Sweden(with Allied help) and was flown from Sweden to England. There, he was forwarded to the U.S. Hitler made him believe that his cause was right and just. After thorough debriefing and shown the Holocaust Hitler was doing. He was convinced he should help the Allies win the war. The First Atom Bomb was developed and tested in the desert of New Mexico. Try to imagine if Hitler beat the allied force in making the bomb? What further catasthrophic destruction he would have wrought.

In 1978 NSA declassified a MAGIC decrypt by US Naval Intelligence of a signal from the Japanese embassy in Stockholm dated 9 November 1944 (decrypted 12 November) which refers to a 5kg Uranium atom splitting weapon of devastating force first used in June 1942. Later an intelligence summary from June 1945 refers to corroboration that the design for this 1 kt warhead was transferred to Japan sometime during 1944 gleaned from interrogation of a Japanese POW.

Germany had the Atomic bomb relatively early in the war but by the time they had it lacked the ability to deliver their weapon over UK airspace. Hitler intended a V-2 campaign in 1944 to use this warhead but was deterred by a threat conveyed through Romania's Marshal Antonsecu in August 1944 from Churchill that the RAF would retaliate with night raids dropping Anthrax all across Germany.

Quite an interesting article. It indeed underlines the crucial role of Soviet Union in WW2. Had she agreed a separate peace with Germany in 1941 or 1942, or, even worse, collapsed, the war in Europe would have stalled for years, with Germany in full controll of the Continent, his army at full strenght, not considering the immense popularity gained by Hitler. With her east-backyard safe, and access to the vast mineral and oil resources of (part of) the Soviet Union, Germany would have dominated Europe unrivalled, with the possibility to deploy strategic enterprises out of range of allied bombers. Non considering the possibble contact of German and Japanese forces trough Russia. And hence, only several years later and using plenty of atomic bombs over Europe by the USA Germany, pheraps would have collapsed.
So, if the World has not seen Adolf Hitler to die old and honoured in his bed, or, alternatively, an atomic desert on the whole European continent, we know who thank.

The Junkers Ju-390 had the range to reach New York and back, but was unsuited because it was so slow flying and lacked a proper bomb bay. It's fuel consumption above 21,000 feet due to automatic superchargers was unacceptable, thus forced to fly low where it was vulnerable to US air defences. Ironically one Ju-390 crashed in the sea 2.5 miles southwest from Owl's Head, Maine USA on 17/18 September 1944. undoubtedly it's target was New York and the fact it was a lone aircraft raises a big question whether it was an intended nuclear attack. The wreck of this 6 engined aircraft is still there on the seabed according to at least one diver.

The aircraft actually intended for the Amerika Bomber raid had been the He-274 manufactured at Toulouse which was lost to the Germans with the fall of France. The Germans also had the He-277 in early production for high altitude bombing of the UK. That aircraft was capable of a prodigious 49,500 service ceiling. No good for precision bombing but perfect for delivering strategic weapons.

Compelling evidence has begun to emerge, much cited in the 2005 book by Rainer Karlsch, "Hitler's Bomb," especially that of eyewitnesses to nuclear test blasts at Rugen in October 1944 and later at Ohrdruf in March 1945. The October 1944 blasts in particular have several independent corroborations.

Upon his release from Nazi slave labour at an atomic-bomb fabrication plant on Bornholm Island, Professor Paul Rivet gave an intriguing press statement at Paris on 14 October 1945, cited by the Toronto Daily Star the next day, in which Rivet claimed that the Germans had the Atomic bomb since June 1944, however they lacked the resources to develop it. Bornholm had an enormous but now sealed uranium mine said to be beneath Hammershus fortress.

"Upon his release from Nazi slave labour at an atomic-bomb fabrication plant on Bornholm Island, Professor Paul Rivet gave an intriguing press statement at Paris on 14 October 1945, cited by the Toronto Daily Star the next day, in which Rivet claimed that the Germans had the Atomic bomb since June 1944, however they lacked the resources to develop it. Bornholm had an enormous but now sealed uranium mine said to be beneath Hammershus fortress."

Which just goes to show that this story which I've just discovered floating on the the 'Interwebz' is so much BS.

Having grown up on the island, including during the 50 years' anniversary of the liberation, when media were plastered with "all things WW2 & Bornholm", and not having heard anything about this tale before today, I can assure you that this is pure invention.

I've also visited said castle numerous times (as have thousands, if not millions of tourists) and there's not a hint of any uranium mine.

I doubt whether Bornholm even posses uranium deposits of a type which would yield viable ore.

The only sources for this story seems to be a number of newspaper stories 1945 (plus one possibly derivative stories from 1946 and one from 1948). I guarantee that if this was true it would loom very large in not just local WW2 history, but in Danish WW2 history as well. Yet not a single historian has written anything on this spurious claim.

To this day the people of Bornholm have an unusually large incidence of diseases of the nervous system general malaise and nausea caused it is thought by Radon gas. The Island is a tip of a geological structure which extends from under southern Sweden containing Uranium ores.

I did not make this up. I have cited authentic newspaper reports. Bornholm was captured by the Soviets in 1945 and much like their conduct in Crimea would not hand the island back for a couple of years. Wonder why?

Radon gas does not prove there are vast deposits of uranium there. You can find radon gas all over the place. I have a radon gas detector in my house—hardly means I'm setting on a vast "gold mine" of uranium.

And there is little reason to speculate as to why the USSR would seize lands–they wanted them and they kept them as long as they could.

No you didn't… that's all you can testify to, however Elisabeth Meistlin a local resident in WW2 did witness the blast and she was published in the NDR in 2004. Also in Time Magazine 28 November 1944, Manhattan Physicist Philip Morison also confirmed this test blast and another eyewitness Luigi Romersa who died in 2007 also witnessed it. About the same time frameSwedish newspapers reported electronic interference disrupted all communications with Berlin.

Thank you for advising us that you lived 23 kilometres away and didn't see anything. That's really helpful Tholzel.

Of course Germany in October 1944 was under night curfew and German residents were required to report to air raid shelters at night or during the day if air raid sirens went off and Romersa recounted air raid sirens before the test blasts went off. No doubt if you were at Bergen auf Rugen in an air raid shelter you heard and knew nothing.

So all you're really saying is you saw and heard nothing and don't believe in it which is merely a personal opinion.

Actually the least it means is that various people living in the same city at the same time have different stories.

In short, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.

If you and I are at the same place at the same time and you claim you saw an alien spacecraft—-and I don't—then you have to explain why not.
If you assert that I'm lying–then why would I do so? If you assert that only you could see it–then that requires additional explaining.

See what I mean?

If people actually living there at the time saw no such "bomb test" then why not?

Clearly someone is mistaken. And the idea that a nuke was tested there requires more proofs than people saying they saw no such thing.

CXT you presume and you presume wrongly, that there was a nuclear test at Bergen auf Rugen… That is not the claim. If Tholzel saw nothing then that's fine. That is his sole contribution that he saw nothing.

Seeing nothing is not proof that there was no event. Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

I have said previously tongue in cheek to put Tholzel's mind at rest there was no nuclear test blast in the town square at Bergen.

As previously mentioned the test blast location was 23 kilometres away from Bergen. Elizabeth Meistlin a resident of Stralsund saw it clearly. Manhattan Project Physicist Philip Morrison disclosed these test blasts on Rugen to Time magazine in November 1944.

At the location of these test blasts there are two craters filled with rain water and deeply contaminated with the artificial radionuclide Caesium 137.

In terms of extraordinary evidence US Navy Intelligence only happened to publish a report in 1945 on German use of the Atomic Bomb during WWII. Gosh I guess that does not qualify in your book?

Ruben we should note is a diver who discovered the wreckage of a Ju-390 of Owls Head Maine USA. He has recovered artifacts including a Junkers constructor's plate from the seabed wreckage. This aircraft went down about 18 September 1944. I have never met or corresponded with Ruben but would love to make contact some time.

It will be stone age.Wasteland rubble world.
Explaining Hitler will destroy all West European ports Spcly British Islands. All Russian Big city like Leningrad & Moscow.
The will use U boat with nuke in NY Manhattan. on the other hand USA will drop Hamburg, Stuttgart German Machine area.
I dont like Nazi but I like German Engineering & Machine.
2013 I was fighting with arrow & cross bow for radiation free zone. The world moved into Africa and Indo-China for food and pure water. Then new Civilization started.

CXT there is evidence that nerve gas equipped V-2 rockets were fired at Soviet forces by an SS V-2 battery to the north of Berlin.

In the final drive on Berlin from the River Oder between 14 April and 8 May 1945 the 1st Ukranian Front and the 1st Beylorussian front lost 352,474 men, but only 78,291 fell in action. The remainder fell to V-2 attacks.

The actual warheads used remains unclear whether they had atomic or nerve gas warheads?

274,183 men killed by V2 rockets would be kinda hard to cover up. Heck, 274,183 killed by any means would be staggering. What evidence exists that it was "V2 rockets" and that they were "gas" tipped or even "atomic?"

Besides–lets just say you are right–for the sale of argument. That would only show one of the main contentions of the article was correct. The USSR was willing and able to absorb horrific casualties to defeat the Nazi's. The technology—even IF used, was unable to overcome plain old numbers.

(I find that point telling as the USA races to build ever more complex and expensive fighter planes etc.)

V-Weapons Division zbV Gaudecker under Lt.Colonel Gerlach (XXXIX.PzK V-weapons Division Gaudecker) was formed in April 1945 with special V2 rockets for use in the defence of Berlin. The unit retreated south to Oranienberg from Penemunde and made a stand at Fehrbellin. Once their rockets were expended the SS firing unit made its way across the Elbe and surrendered to the US 29th Inf Division. The US Defense Department interrogated members of this battery and uncovered evidence of use of Atomic weapons on V-2 rockets. US Defense Dept archivist Douglas Deitrich is on record referring to this information and being ordered at San Francisco to destroy US archives of these nuclear V weapons used in Pomerania.

A friend of mine is a widely published author on WW2 topics. He is currently writing a book with all the facts you request and it would not be fair or appropriate of me to discuss the source material in depth until after he has published but all your questions will be answered in due course. I have been privy to some of his unpublished data in private emails.

How can I check THEM out–to make sure they know what they are talking about?

If someone was launching mass nuke tipped V2's there would be 100's of 1000's of witnesses, it would be impossible to cover up and there would be proof all over the place.

Could they have even fueled that many rockets that late in the war?

Think about it—200,000 plus people don't exactly "bunch up." Soldiers are spread out all over the place–to kill 200,000 soldiers you would need A LOT of nukes or one really big one AND you would have to hit a city of soldiers to get it done.

Either way everybody would see the results—you would have Trinity sites all over Germany etc.

That's the probelm–there isn't any. Every time one of these conspiracy theorists gets on a roll, they flood you with half-truths, unsubtantiatable rumors, non-relevant factoids and mystery sources–sources that NEVER pan out. It just isn;t worth trying to untangle their fabrications because every time you point out anotyher one of their errors, they come back at you with a vengence–and twenty-two more irrelevant facts.

Your right—absence of proof is not proof of absence–but little or no proof coupled with conjecture isn't \proof\ either.

First of al your claiming evidence which is suspect to start with.

How could some dude that was working on the most secret project in US history be anywhere near Germany at the time in question to verify \blasts?.\ There is no way in heck a scientist working on the Manhatten Project would have been allowed to leave the country let alone be anywhere near a place he could have seen \blasts.\

2nd Nope, all your doing is CLAIMING such reports exist, I have not read them, I know of no, verifiable, reports of \ blast craters\ containing \cesium\ and you present no attribution that can I independently check—in sort, makes for an interesting discussion but it ain't \proof\ of any sort.

Think of it like this—if I claim to be dating Miranda Kerr of Victoria's Secret fame. How much \proof\ would it take for you to believe me? I can produce a couple a people whom say I am dating Miranda Kerr, I could probably produce some \news\ stories of her dating \someone,\ I could probably come up with some photos which show us together.
But that does not make it real.

3-If some one was testing nukes then you should have FAR MORE than just 3 or 4 people that saw said \blast.\ 1000's or even 10's of 1000's of people should have seem it.

4-You claim multiple test's—which means not just 1 bomb–but MANY bombs. As you, yourself, point out the USA only did 1 test and 2 bombs. That is with all the scientists, the industrial base, the 10's of billions of dollars, the safe and secure locations to build and work–and we only got 2 bombs and a test. But the German's in their death throes built MANY bombs–that is just not feasible.

5-No bombs were ever used–so the argument becomes some version of \we are smart enough to build bombs but too stupid to use them.\
So that is self-negating in terms of reasoning.

6-Like I mentioned earlier–even if you right–which your not BTW. The Nazi's lost and lost badly–so even if they had a bomb, it resulted in NOTHING. It becomes a mere historical curiosity.
Like Archimedies (sp) Engine–the dude had all the pieces of a steam engine and never made the leap to actually building one.
Interesting speculation on what would have happened had he done so. But he didn't so things turned out like they did.

Regretfully, the Hiroshima bomb was completed in time thanks to Germany.
Had to be kept a secret for over 50 years for obvious political reasons.
How would it look after spending the equivalent of $2 trillion dollars
America was woefully short of enriched uranium?

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